Gender Dynamics in Design: Exploring Interactions, Psychological Safety and Implicit Bias in Virtual Engineering Dyads

Abstract Despite increasing efforts to promote diversity and achieve gender parity in STEM, women's participation in engineering remains low, with many leaving the field due to negative experiences and hostile workplace climates. Prior research has explored the factors influencing the retention of women in engineering at both undergraduate and graduate levels, offering several recommendations for educators to improve retention rates. More recently, studies have begun examining the factors affecting women's retention in the engineering workplace, highlighting how deeply held beliefs, biases, and individual perceptions contribute to hostile work environments. In this study, we focus on the interactions between expert practitioners during a virtual design task, viewed through the lens of gender. Our aim is to understand how gender and gender composition within expert engineering design dyads affect design interactions, team dynamics, and perceived psychological safety in a virtual collaborative environment. Through statistical, stochastic, and network analyses, we identified distinct gender-based patterns in design interactions and communication. Our findings indicated that mixed-gender dyads engaged in more iterative design space exploration. We also identified discrepancies in perceived psychological safety between men and women, as well as interactions that influenced these perceptions. Significant differences emerged in self and partner perceptions of contribution, particularly concerning design decisions. This study highlights the impact of gender dynamics on collaboration and psychological safety in engineering design, emphasizing the need for more gender-based analysis to foster environments that enhance innovation and creativity.